


Diary of a Victor

by dandelion8765G



Category: Close to the Enemy, Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Brothers, Crossover, Diary/Journal, District 2 (Hunger Games), Gen, Panem, Post-Rebellion Story, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, The Capitol (Hunger Games), Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-18 13:35:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28744098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dandelion8765G/pseuds/dandelion8765G
Summary: Brothers Callum and Victor Ferguson from Close to the Enemy exist in the Hunger Games Universe, and Victor is a Victor. This is his therapy assignment, written during the early days of Panem's new, post-rebellion goverment.*********************************************************





	Diary of a Victor

The doctor says I must write about my life, as part of my progress to help me to recover from my war injuries (mental) and help me to get a job, life, etc. etc. He's a damned fool if you ask me, but nobody ever asks poor Victor, so here you go.

I have the most career-iest of all career names you can ever get, given to me by my parents at birth (may they rest in peace). What a joke, Callum always said, my older brother. He should have been Victor, really. But he got my grandad's name by tradition. I got the dreams and aspirations of a nation. The skinny boy, can't lift a stone. "Go sling glitter with the pretty boys in One," they told me. "That's all you'll ever be good for." I fought them, gave a few black eyes and got back a few more, but the truth is I was never cut out for Two. Weapons are such a bore, they're all the same. Not a bit of artistry to put into something made for destruction. But give me books, paintings, fine china and jewels, the Capitol's riches, and I would write my name across them all. 

"You just need to apply yourself," said Callum, five years my elder. "I'm going to have a good government job. Engineering." And he did at that. Good old Cal, always reliable to bring home the cans of meat and sacks of potatoes while I was still getting in fights in the schoolyard, collecting little pieces of granite on my walk home from school and lining them up on my shelf. He would do anything for me, my brother. Anything except the one thing he couldn't. Volunteer.

He was a factory man, already aged out of the reaping and climbing the ranks to hovercraft engineer by the time my name got called. Everybody cheered, they did. Even the faces I punched in the schoolyard. My brother looked helpless, like he wanted to punch some faces too. Everybody thought it was good luck. "Two will have a Victor this year... we already do!" (Ha ha.) "Don't worry, old Cal," I said. "Better me than you. You haven't the faintest how to die in style." It's true. He always was an old stick-in-the-mud. No fun at all.

Cal is not a good runner either. He may command the universe, but he never could beat me in a footrace. That is pretty much what saved me. And I am quite good at finding hiding spots. Run away, hide, circle back, poke out a few eyes, and before you know it, old Snow himself is putting a crown on my head. I would have thrown it in the rubbish, but it was an awful pretty thing. So I melted it down and made some lovely brass buttons for my coat instead.

I would say it was a benefit, never having to join the mind-numbing ranks of the bomb-builders and tank-welders. A life of luxury in the Victor's Village. All the leisure time in the world to paint the windows and the walls and anything there was. I painted those poor souls who died, and the ones I killed, though not them exactly. Cal asked what I wanted for my birthday. I said a new life. He said, "Grow up, you have the best life in Panem, in the best district. All you have to do is sit on your bum all day doing nothing." And I said, "Piss off." And we didn't talk for about a year. But finally we did talk again. His best friend was off in the Capitol and had just got married so I think he was lonely. That is all I will write for now.

**************

It is now tomorrow. Funny... that can never be, but I said it, so there it is. We had a nice dinner last night with some of the commanders that Callum knows, big important people in the new government. He has a new job now, heading back to Two of all places in the morning, so they wanted to give him a big sendoff. We are in the Capitol now and I like it just fine. I plan to be staying here for quite a while. Mr. Harold is looking after me, as is Cal's girl. Well, actually his friend's girl. It's complicated. She says she'll have plenty of time to check in on me and take me to doctor's appointments now that my brother is off developing new technologies with Mr. Hawthorne. I asked what sort of technologies, but he wouldn't say. "Gale has one of the best minds out there. Paylor thought he might be useful." The nice lady next to me spit out her drink on the table. "Child Killer," I heard her say, though I don't think anyone else noticed. It sounds like an interesting story, though, one I might need to find out more about. I will ask her if I ever see her again. I do like stories, of all kinds. Though technically, I am a child-killer myself if you count the Games. But I don't count them.

I suppose I should talk about the war, since that is why I am technically in therapy. I tried to tell the good doc that I was broken before the war, broken before the Games, broken since my birth, but he said I was being overly dramatic and let's not exaggerate. 

I lived in the Village three or four years. Then Cal said he finally found a way to pay back the bastards for what they'd done to me. (I still don't know what he meant, I'm the same as I always was.) So we joined the revolution. And we fought. And won. But nobody ever wins a war, everyone knows that. 

Cal stayed in Two, smuggling weapons. I was shipped off to the Capitol for the most gruesome scenes you ever did see. I don't want you to think I'm a bad person, but I will say I shot more than a few ladies dead in their apartments and ran down a number of old men in the street with my tank. (It was quite fun, they let me drive a tank. Fun for the first ten minutes, that is.) But I never killed another child. I want you to know that, Doc. I don't think anyone should ever hurt children. Not just because that is the only thing that separates our new civilization from barbarism. But for personal reasons also. I don't want to go into them, but maybe that is why I never succeeded as well as Cal. Or maybe I'm just too emotional, that is what my mum always said. They could handle a lot more of it than I could. Maybe I should have really been born in One with a different family, slinging glitter. I could have been happy there, I think.

The other thing, this sounds stupid. Yes I had to kill a lot of civilians, in the Capitol. But I also had to destroy a lot of art. And it made me cry, and nobody understood why. And I don't want to live in a society where people think that destroying something beautiful means nothing. Even if it was a beautiful thing made by bad people. And I can't put people back together, the dead ones I mean. Not the living ones either. But I can make something out of what's left. There are some lovely little corners of this city, abandoned just as they were, untouched by the war. Lots of lovely little shards laying around everywhere. I have always been quite good at arranging things, piecing things back together, making things useful again. Everyone says it's not as important as the work Cal is doing with Mr. Hawthorne. Not a real job at all. But it's mine, and it's the one place nobody can tell me what to do. I do much better when I'm inventing my own ways to keep myself occupied and not just following somebody else's plans for destruction of somebody or another. They think I'm crazy, Doc, but I assure you I'm quite sane. I may be the only sane one left. 

I think that is all I will write for today. You probably don't want to hear about my meanderings around the city and all the beautiful things I saw while I was out. But I assure you, they were the loveliest things I have seen in a very long time.


End file.
